This invention relates to a missile defence system for intercepting targets and in particular, but not exclusively, to a system for intercepting and destroying a ballistic missile after it has re-entered the earth's atmosphere.
Considering the design of an anti-ballistic missile system, the primary threat is assumed to come from re-entry vehicles approaching on ballistic trajectories aimed with sufficient accuracy to endanger point targets--such as, for example, airfields or ports--but which are likely to be making small manouvres, either deliberately or inadvertantly, about the mean ballistic path. The disclosed embodiment of this invention is concerned with providing a means of intercepting this threat with projectiles with sufficient energy to ensure destruction of the re-entry vehicles, and accurate enough to achieve direct hits on their warheads.
In this specification the term "near reciprocal track" is used to mean a trajectory which lies on or near the reciprocal of the predicted track of a target.
The term `optical tracker` is used to define trackers working at optical wavelengths (one or more of U.V., visible and IR radiation) and similar terms throughout the specification should be interpreted accordingly.